Method and system for cart transfer in electronic commerce

Abstract

The present invention includes an electronic commerce system for transfer of product purchase selection having a first website adapted to communicate product information to consumers and adapted to receive at least one product purchase selection from a consumer, a shopping cart associated with the consumer and adapted to maintain the product purchase selection, and a cart transfer for transferring the product purchase selection from the shopping cart to a second shopping cart associated with the second website.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . An electronic commerce system for transfer of product purchase selection comprising: 
 a first website adapted to communicate product information to consumers and adapted to receive at least one product purchase selection from a consumer; and    a cart transfer for transferring the product purchase selection from the first website to a shopping cart of a second website.    
     
     
         2 . The electronic commerce system of  claim 1  further comprising one or more inputs for receiving information about consumer preferences.  
     
     
         3 . The electronic commerce system of  claim 1  wherein the first website is a manufacturer website and the second website is a customer website.  
     
     
         4 . The electronic commerce system of  claim 1  further comprising a shopping cart on the first website associated with the consumer and adapted to maintain the product purchase selection.  
     
     
         5 . The electronic commerce system of  claim 1  further comprising a customer selection component adapted for the consumer to select a second website.  
     
     
         6 . The electronic commerce system of  claim 5  further comprising a price and availability component for receiving price and availability of the product purchase selection from the second website.  
     
     
         7 . The electronic commerce system of  claim 1  wherein the product purchase selection is an appliance purchase selection.  
     
     
         8 . The electronic commerce system of  claim 1  wherein the cart transfer includes a XML transfer.  
     
     
         9 . The electronic commerce system of  claim 1  wherein the cart transfer includes passing a product identifier.  
     
     
         10 . A method for electronic commerce comprising: 
 providing an online consumer with a web site having a view of a first shopping cart containing one or more product purchase selections;    receiving a selection of a customer website from the online consumer; and    transferring the product purchase selections from the first shopping cart to a second shopping cart on the customer website.    
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10  further comprising displaying a list of customer websites.  
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 10  further comprising displaying pricing of a product purchase selection prior to transferring the product purchase selection.  
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 10  further comprising displaying availability of a product purchase selection prior to transferring the product purchase selection.  
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 10  further comprising displaying policies of the customer website prior to transferring the product purchase selection.